> How many total cards will you system have to handle? I expect this is far
> less than the possible 10 million.

There are up to 10million different card numbers but i can't ever see this
many cards being used. So, for an example, lets say that one person uses the
card every 10 seconds (even that is unlikey) = 8640 cards in a day. Lets
also say that the redemption time is 14 days. Thats 14x8640 = 120960 cards
that could pass through in that time.

> Are you concerned about forged cards?

Nope!

> Do only certain members get a snack token? How are they determined?

That's up to management. All i told them is they have to swipe the card
(during a setup or recharge mode) to activate a token.

> Are the cards read-only or do they some read-write capability you can use?

Read only.

> How many redemption stations will be needed?

Not sure as yet, but it may be more than 1. If it's more than 1 then i would
have a single "database board" with all the card usage info and seperate
boards at each machine. The machines would send the card number to the
database board and get the token via some sort of connection yet to be
determined, probably a simple multidrop rs485 thing.

> How many transactions per day do you anticipate?

Who knows? I'm taking 1 per 10 seconds as a worst case senario.

Rgds,

Kresho Sprem

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pic microcontroller discussion list
> [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Bob Ammerman
> Sent: Thursday, 22 April 2004 1:28 PM
> To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject: Re: [PIC:] Sorting through millions of numbers
>
>
> Ok, lets go back to the basics of the problem:
>

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